Stwert-Crash Control Battle

# 1 17-12-2009 , 10:29 PM

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Well... not sure how much time I'll have before the end of the year, but my goal is to have a complete rendered animation, 10-20 seconds long, that includes modelling (obviously), texturing (UV mapping? user added image

), rigging (I'll keep it simple for this reason), dynamics (rubs hands together), and proper lighting.

My idea is as follows: The protagonist will begin in a comfortable situation, a crisis will arise, tension will increase, and a humorous conclusion will result. I hope that's original, and looking forward to getting going on this.

Good luck to Dango! My only chance in this battle is that he's been away from Maya for a bit. :p

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# 2 18-12-2009 , 09:16 AM

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No pressure!

You have a whole 12 days less Christmas, Christmas eve, and new years day (if you celebrate those holidays).

So, no problem that is still 9 days.

Wait, any Christmas shopping or Christmas parties? Well maybe you lose another 2 or 3 days.

No worries, that still leaves you 6 days.

No pressure! God created the world in that many days and rested on the next. But all you guys will have to do is - put together a story, develop a couple character concepts, model, UV unwrap, texture, rig, animate, light, and render something. Cake!

Sounds like you need to add something like building, staining, and vanishing bookshelf and then writing a small 4000 page nova describing the inner most feelings of all the characters in the animation to put on the bookshelf before the end of the year as well.

Sorry, I just could not resist poking a little fun at you.

Good luck guys!

Oh, and I would be partial to a deep beechnut stain on that bookshelf.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 18-12-2009 at 09:45 AM.

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# 3 18-12-2009 , 09:25 AM

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Sounds good Stwert!

If we're both not quite finished by the end of the year and are wanting to take them a bit further I'll be open to extending the time limit a bit, we're making up the rules after all! lol

And as ctbram mentioned, there may be a few lost days due to shopping and parties etc, so we can just see how it goes.

Not ever done any animation really so you've probably got a better chance than you think! Haha

Good luck!

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# 4 18-12-2009 , 05:40 PM

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Don't laugh too hard ctbram, I just wrote a 50,000 word novel in november (nanowrimo.org).

Just finished all the rendering for the group project I was doing (~48 hrs straight user added image

) so my computer is taking a much needed (well, probably not) break and I'll hopefully get a good start this evening.

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# 5 18-12-2009 , 05:51 PM

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My comment was meant to be tongue in cheek (just trying to be funny).

I have followed both of your guys projects on this site and I am sure you will both put something really nice together. I know the deadline is flexible with the holidays and all.

BTW speaking of that Merry Christmas and gook luck. I need to start working on some original stuff. As you know I tend to specialize in just working from tutorials.

I think I have learned about all I can from those and I am gonna start looking for some material to start modeling some of my own stuff. Or texturing some of my old stuff.

I like hard surface stuff and I think I am going to work on some futuristic vehicle stuff shortly.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 6 18-12-2009 , 05:56 PM

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Yeah, I know you were joking... I forgot to put an emoticon after my nanowrimo plug :p I should really put a bookshelf together on of these evenings user added image

Good luck with your own creative ventures! I've been doing quite a few tutorials lately too, and I'm feeling like I would learn the most if I alternate tutorials with my own attempts. Too much of the former and I won't really assimilate the stuff I'm theoretically learning, and too much of the latter and I'll stumble around blindly.

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# 7 19-12-2009 , 10:50 PM

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Okay, a start... part of a cartoony car. Did some other random props and stuff, but I'm wondering why I decided to model a city. Oh well.

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# 8 19-12-2009 , 11:27 PM

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Cool! I like the style you've got going on there!
A city, good luck....lol
I wouldn't worry about finishing on time, I have a feeling I'll be asking you if you want to extend it by a week or two when it comes closer to the time.
We'll both get better results if we do that anyway.

But for now, looking good, keep it up mate!

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# 9 22-12-2009 , 04:37 AM

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Not a spectacular update, but I've been working a little bit on various things here. This is an odd looking device, but its purpose will hopefully come clear in due course. I added a custom attribute to drive the gears with an expression (not very complex, but I was proud of my first expression nonetheless user added image

)
Anyways, hopefully more updates soon.

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# 10 22-12-2009 , 05:48 PM

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Looks interesting! I'm guessing that you'll be using more dynamics than I will be as I have zero experience with them.
You've got my curiosity going on what this will end up being!

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# 11 23-12-2009 , 05:05 AM

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Ok, time is getting shorter before Christmas, so I felt I should block out the rest of my protagonist. Still a ton to do on this guy, but here he is so far. Pretty rough and dorky looking, haha, but I'm hoping the rigging and animation will give him quite a bit of character. Probably not much will happen from now till after christmas cause I still gotta work tomorrow and then there's stuff going on all the time.

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# 12 01-01-2010 , 09:58 PM

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Just to show I haven't quit yet! Little update. I've changed my idea somewhat for a more reasonable animation. Christmas has been spent mostly with family and friends, so despite thinking that I'd do more maya over holidays, I'll probably spend more time after this weekend. I think I'm okay to let this continue on for a while after I go back to work. What do you think of a January 30th deadline, Dango?

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# 13 02-01-2010 , 01:24 AM

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Sounds good to me Stwert!
It'll give us both a bit of time to get something decent together.
Liking what I'm seeing from you so far, interesting!

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# 14 07-01-2010 , 06:14 AM

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I realized a while ago that I jumped headfirst into this with only a vague idea of where I was going, which may work for some people, but I think I really ended up mostly spinning my wheels. So today I completely storyboarded the whole animation and now I have something concrete to follow.

Here's the location of the short so far. No city anymore. I'm going to have to do a rigging tutorial or two before I get the car and robot guy properly rigged. If there's anything I learned from a previous short animation, it's that an improperly rigged character makes the animation wayyy painful. But my goal for tonight is to accurately recreate an electron micrograph with pencil and paper.

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# 15 18-01-2010 , 03:05 AM

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Okay, finally an update (sorry for the long delay :blush user added image

Here's my rigged vehicle (and textured with blinns :p). Got some main controls and a few custom attributes for animating things like the button. Still had some frustration with the rigging, but I got to a point where I'm reasonably okay to start animating with it. Does anyone know how to rotate different subsets of geometry at two different pivot points? Simply speaking, could I animate (using set driven keys probably) where the pivot point is? Rigging that robot thing is next.

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